A New Trade War Offers No Easy Way Back for Old Global Order

  • Rules-based trade fades as policies cement protectionism
  • Once a free-market cheerleader, US borrows from China playbook
The captain of a port pilot boat approaches a container ship outside the Port of Los Angeles.Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
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The world’s three dominant economies are entering a new, combative phase as the US increasingly uses trade weapons borrowed from China’s playbook. That’s threatening to deepen international fractures and to challenge decades of free-market orthodoxy — and it leaves Europe with big decisions to make.